(both plural and singular)

The Slakash (Poison Women - so-named for the toxic brew they consume to enter a berserk rage) are warrior-priestesses of the Yodhblakat (Daughters of Blakat). While all priestesses of Blakat are taught certain martial skills, the Slakash specialize in it, and serve as mercenaries to those supplicants who contribute large amounts of funds to the temple of Blakat. They are not known for having any real self-restraint or particular organization, but rather as berserkers, who work themselves up into frenzies with the assistance of mind-altering substances. Thus, they tend to be employed as shock troops and general thugs, not put up against true soldiers.

A tradition of the Slakash is that they always take trophies of their kills. According to the Blakat mindset, if no trophy exists to commemorate a deed, then no deed worth commemorating has been committed. Likewise, any deed that does not bring with it a worthy trophy is not a worthy deed. Furthermore, they tend to collect their trophies immediately, rather than going back to loot (or maim) the dead later. Distinguished priestesses of Blakat tend to look a great deal like their matron, having plenty of scars and marks, adorned in a shambles of mismatched (and torn) articles of clothing and pieces of armor, with an assortment of weapons, and grisly trophies (scalps, skulls, shrunken heads, finger necklaces, tooth necklaces, pelts, etc.) to testify to their achievements.

The Slakash have generally found work with the nobility of Babel, serving as pawns in their clashes with each other. However, since the dropping of the Boomer on Babel, power has been consolidating under the High Princess, and the nobility has been in decline - and more concerned with survival than ambition, for the time being. Therefore, the Yodhblakat has been forced to look abroad for new "converts". Blakat has a pretty bad reputation amongst those outsiders who even know her name, but that hasn't stopped priestesses of Blakat from trying to present her in terms seen as more favorable and honorable to foreigners, when the situation merits it. As it is, there might well be a petty warlord here or there on the surface who has a Slakash on retainer as an enforcer ... and as an exotic status symbol.